This is possibly an exaggeration, but it seems that every time The Holbs sets foot out our front door he is accosted with love by our neighbors!
The Holbs is world famous in Moscow for being the heart and soul behind The Fence. The Fence! That bastion of manly craftsmanship! Ladies in their late forties from our neighborhood love to fawn all over The Holbs and his rippling forearms of might and courage. One glimpse at his glorious red visage and they go faint, clamoring over themselves to ask about his day, remark on the weather, and compliment his various shrubberies.
When The Holbs was building his fencely masterpiece it seemed he could not go twenty minutes while outside without having to discuss such-and-such with so-and so from down the street. I used to watch all this happen and thank my lucky stars it was he holding down the fort of conversation and not I, for it is a known fact around my house that I tend to get surly easily when cornered into small-talk type situations.
As magestically righteous an accomplishment as that Fence was in the eyes of every inhabitant of the ghettoer end of B Street, it was nothing compared to the glory and honor that went down on our driveway on Saturday. I am talking a moving sale of epic, gargantuan proportions!
Our items for sale filled up the entirety of my living room the night before as we assigned prices on brightly colored sticky dots until the wee hours, and then Holbs The Famous arose at 4:30 to begin hauling pieces of our Moscow lives to the curb, to be rifled through, haggled over, and taken home at 8:00 on the dot.
At 7:00 I stretched my toes, congratulated myself for waking up a whole hour early, and then headed to the kitchen in my undies for a bowl of cereal. And that is when I saw it. That is when I saw the entire bloody town of Moscow, in my driveway. In my undies.
I shrieked and retreated to my closet for clothing. And then, armed with modesty and a belly full of Kix, I ventured outside and began the necessary business of helping my Holbshero accept other people's money.
Our couch? Sold. Our table? Sold. Four years worth of my clothing? Sold. My bronze planter stand that is so ugly it is cool? Not sold, and just in the nick of time!
The Holbs was a hit. People were tossing money at him willy-nilly, smacking him on the back, and shaking his hand, and congratulating him. Old ladies brought him lemonades to keep him refreshed, strapping young men offered to hoist heavy furniture into other people's vehicles for him, distinguished gentlemen complimented his organizational skills and admonished him to "put on a hat, it's sunny out!" while I stood there, pregnant and sweaty, like chopped liver.
Things began to die down around noon, and then randomly at 2:00 I went outside to find a man in his seventies serenading The Holbseller on my guitar with old songs he used to perform "while touring Europe in my twenties."
I am telling you. Our house was the center of the Universe that day. We sold everything. All thanks to my Holbs and his never-ending fount of Holbsiness.
Now that the Moving Sale of the Century has ended, The Holbs's status in the neighborhood has skyrocketed. His stock is hot! Women blush in his presence and men bow to his masculine superiority! "That sure was some yard sale!" is what they say in reverent tones.
And then I say, "Who was that?"
And The Holbs says,
"Oh, so-and-so from the down the street. Did you know his wife is French?"
And I say,
"Oh."
and go back to thinking about whether I want an orange popsicle or a cherry popsicle when our walk is over, 'cause that's about all I'm good for these days.
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